October 20, 2012 - Pennsylvania Grand Canyon |
| Autumn splendor at
Essex Skypark early Saturday morning. Today's destination was the
Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, which has been on my flying list of things to
do for a few years now. |
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Bright colors in the Baltimore
suburbs. |
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| Football stadium at
Towson University. |
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A big quary alongside of I-95 heading
north. |
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| A tree farm in
northern Maryland. |
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| Approaching York
Airport. |
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| Mike R. and
passenger Joe landed just after I did. |
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We had breakfast at the Kitty Hawk
restaurant in the brick building alongside the hangar. |
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| Arjan arrived after
breakfast and we all formed up over York Airport. Then we headed
north. North to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon! |
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Turning over York. |
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| Arjan in route
formation. |
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| Heading north, the
overcast disappeared and the sun came out. |
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| The peculiar
Pennsylvania ridges that run east-west are visible in this picture. |
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About 20 miles out we start
descending. |
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| There is the
entrance to the canyon straight ahead. |
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The canyon generally runs north to
south and is about 30 miles long. We stayed above the rim pretty
much on the northerly run, checking it out for power cables and just to
get a good look at it. |
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| The tree-covered
mountains were just about peak. |
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| There was still
low-hanging clouds in places. |
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One particular mountain was lit up by
the sun and was literally covered in gold trees.
At the northern end of the canyon we
made a 180 turn and went back through again, this time below the
rim. What fun. |
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| All too soon it was
over and we were out and climbing. |
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| We were headed for
the Golden Age Air Museum Great Pumpkin Fly-in at Grimes Field, Bethel,
PA. We tightened up in close formation for an overhead pass and
break. |
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Getting ready to break. |
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| On final at Grimes
Field. |
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Safe on deck at Grimes. |
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| A Xenos motorglider
had flown in. |
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polished and it was a fantastic polish job, I can tell you. I talked
with the builder/pilot and he gave me some good info on how the Xenos
flies. |
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You can see how much longer the Xenos
wings are compared to the other planes. |
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The newest edition to the Golden Age
Air Museum: this Sopwith Pup.
Unfortunately, the west end of the
runway and taxiiway was very soft so none of the WWI airplanes
flew. |
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| Our three RVs parked
in a line abreast. |
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| A classsy-looking
RV-8. |
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A Zenith 750 STOL plane. |
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| The GAAM volunteers
next project: a 1918 SPAD XIII. The welded steel tube fuselage
is visible in this picture. |
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| I departed Grimes
Field. The Xenos can be seen taxiing for takeoff in the middle of th
epicture. |
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| The Pennsylvania
countryside east of Lancaster is really quite scenic. |
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This is my favorite time of the year to
fly, when the foliage colors. |
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| At the top of the
Chesapeake Bay and parts of the Eastern Shore, there were areas of nothing
but trees. I circled just over the trees; it was incredible. |
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| Crossing the Bay
back to Essex Skypark. |
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| Approaching Essex
Skypark, just visible center left. What a great aviation day! |
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